Kudos to our friends at Engadget for publishing the first iPod Shuffle box unpacking photo series I’ve seen. Eric Lin and Lenn Pryor picked theirs up at The Apple Store at Market and Stockton Streets in San Francisco. Apparently, the Downtown San Francisco Apple Store has been the only place where the iPod Shuffle could be purchased for the past two days.
Looking for a place to buy an iPod Shuffle right away, my brother Scott found the new Apple Store at the Rockaway Townsquare Mall in Rockaway, NJ, a couple of hours ago. There they told him that the only Apple Store that had iPod Shuffles at the moment was San Francisco, but they would be receiving a shipment soon.
Speaking of the Rockaway, NJ Apple Store, this is reportedly one of the first stores Apple has created in the “Apple Mini” Retail Store Design. Scott asked me if I’d ever seen a store like it, and I said “yea” and proceeded to descibe the other mall-based Apple stores where I’d been. This is not what the Apple Mini retail stores look like.
According to Apple, Apple Mini retail stores are “…a stunning all-new design featuring stainless steel walls and seamless white floors and ceilings. The mini store is half the size of Apple�s smallest store to date, which will allow it to be placed in a variety of new locations to introduce Apple�s innovative products to even more customers.”
I’ll have to check out the Rockaway store next time I’m up north.